MERMAIDS AT PLAY
Fashions for Men
Turning to male attire we have to note that the main features of men's dress as we know it was already established, though in regard to colour, details, and decoration the influence of the Regency period still made itself felt. Trousers were first generally introduced in the Army (see Parkes's Hygiene) at the time of the Peninsular War, but pantaloons—the tight-fitting nether garments which superseded knee-breeches late in the eighteenth century, and were secured at the ankles with ribbons and straps, were fashionable in the 'forties. You will see no trousers, as we know them to-day, in the illustrations to Pickwick, and in the early 'forties pantaloons appear in Punch's illustrations of fashionable wear at dances. The cut of the "claw-hammer" dress-coat does not differ from that of to-day, but it was often of blue cloth with brass buttons; shirts were frilled, and waistcoats of gold-sprigged satin. The bow tie was larger, resembling that worn by nigger minstrels. "Gibus," or crush hats, did not arrive till the late 'forties—they are mentioned in Thackeray's Book of Snobs, and gentlemen always carried their tall hats in their hands at evening parties, and habitually wore them at clubs. For morning wear blue frock-coats, with white drill trousers and straps, were fashionable in 1844. Stocks and cravats and neck-cloths had not been ousted by ties. The dégagé loose neck-cloth of the "fast man" in 1848 is ridiculed by Punch, who traces its origin to the neck-wear—as modern hosiers say—of the British dustman. Amongst overcoats the Taglioni, a sack-like garment, called after the famous dancer, is most frequently mentioned; the Petersham, a heavy overcoat named after Lord Petersham, a dandy of the Waterloo period, still held its own. The Crimea brought Alma overcoats, Balaklava wrappers, and Crimea cloaks, and about the same time Punch caricatures a long garment reaching nearly to the heels, which gave the wearer the appearance of a toy figure from a Noah's Ark. There is a mention of the "Aquascutum" waterproof ten years earlier. One Stultz was the fashionable tailor of the time. The chief hatter, however (according to Punch), was Prince Albert, whose continual and unfortunate experiments with headgear have been mentioned elsewhere. Punch speaks of his obsession as a monomania; he only abstained from calling him "the mad hatter" because that engaging personage had not yet emerged from the brain of Lewis Carroll. But Punch himself was much preoccupied with hats. There was a certain elegance about the tall beaver hat which tapered towards the crown. There was none in the rigid "chimney-pot" or cylinder silk hat, the ugliest of all European head-dresses, with its flat, narrow brim, which was "established" by 1850. Punch warred against it almost as vigorously and as ineffectually as against the crinoline. Indeed, in 1851 he even went to the length of suggesting the form and materials suitable for an ideal hat:—
The Ideal Hat
Take an easy and well-cut morning jacket of the form no longer confined to the stableyard or barrack room, but admitted alike into breakfast parlour and country house, or the hanging paletot with a waistcoat, not scrimp and tight, but long and ample, and wide and well-made trousers of any of the neutral-tinted woollen fabrics that our northern looms are so prolific in; and we assert fearlessly that a broad-leafed and flexible sombrero of grey, or brown or black felt may be worn with such a costume, to complete a dress at once becoming and congruous.
WHY, INDEED!
Perceptive Child: "Mamma, dear! Why do those gentlemen dress themselves like the funny little men in the Noah's Ark?"